


Darkness and the West

by ncfan



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU as in this doesn't fit into my head canon continuity, Alternate Universe, Brother/Sister Incest, F/M, Introspection, Non-Explicit, POV Female Character, POV Male Character, Remembrance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 21:58:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3224939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Was the ground something you could trust?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darkness and the West

The Helcaraxë would deceive you easily if you let it, and even if you didn't. Ground that looked fragile proved strong; ground that looked as though it would support the weight of hundreds could not support even one. You walked for miles upon miles of flatland, of endless tracks of flat ice, until you thought that perhaps flatland was all there was left and you would not have to risk the treacherous cliffs nor walk in the shadows. Then, the jagged spires of ice would appear, looming starkly white against the pitch-black sky, and another of the Ice's perils had revealed itself.

Where you thought there would be life, there was death. And when you thought there was naught but death, you instead found life.

The howling of the wind was too clamorous for either Irissë or Turukáno to sleep, though Itarillë was fast asleep between them. "How much longer, do you think?" Irissë murmured.

"Before the winds stops, or before Father calls the Host to march again?" Turukáno's voice especially soft; Irissë could only suppose that he was loath to awaken his daughter, as fitfully as she had slept the last few times the Host had stopped to rest. He need not have worried, she thought—if Itarillë could sleep in spite of the wind, she'd likely remain deaf to her father and her aunt talking.

"Both."

He frowned, stared up at the ceiling of their tent with a strange light gleaming in his eyes. "As for Father… A few hours, perhaps." His face contorted. "I don't think the wind will ever stop."

It sounded like the voices of the dead, screaming. He'd said that when he lied recovering from his encounter with ice and water and death, when he lay by the fire shivering, blue-lipped, face twisted with agony, face awash with desperate tears. He had tossed and turned in the blankets and furs, clawing at his ears while Findaráto tried to grab his hands, and Irissë stared on dumbly. Even when Turukáno calmed, even when he no longer tried to do injury to himself, he lied in his sickbed and muttered against the wind.

Lately, Irissë had begun to hear the voices her brother described . The echoes of the lamentations Mandos cursed them to, the screams of the dying, the suffering bound up in the Ice reverberating in the ears of the Quendi. When she looked around her, no one else seemed to hear it. To them, it was just the wind. Only she and Turukáno could hear anything more.

She reached beneath the blankets, over Itarillë, and found his hand in the darkness. She could promise him nothing.

They labored through the wind and Ice and snow together, with Itarillë, or by themselves when the child was with her grandfather. Turukáno stared off into the distance distractedly after pillars of snow kicked up by the wind. They were indeed enticing, resolving themselves into shapes that were all waving arms and undulating torsos, but Irissë knew them for what they were, and drew him away by the hand.

When they stopped to rest, they sent Itarillë to Nolofinwë's tent where there was at least some measure of merriment (Or activity if there was not even that). She needed that. They all needed it, but the very young needed it most of all.

But as much as they might have needed it, neither Irissë nor Turukáno wanted any measure of merriment. To Irissë, it was a waste of time; to Turukáno, a slap in the face. What place had merriment on the cruel tracks of Ice?

The two of them lied together beneath blankets and cloaks and tattered pelts, ears filled with the popping of the dim fire, of their own breathing, of the howling of the wind that made the tent canvas quiver and pucker. They curled up against each other, flesh against flesh, faces gray and eyes dull. They were bound up in their own despair, and in that despair they often forgot who and where they were. This… This was the only place where Irissë felt as though at home.

"I will not leave you to this," he said to her.

Irissë was silent. She curled her arms more tightly around his back, pressed her head against his chest. There were words to be said, invocations against the dark, but she could promise him nothing.

-0-0-0-

The sand of the beach in Nevrast was deceptive as the Ice of the Helcaraxë, but the consequences of being fooled were not nearly so dire. Children shrieked with laughter as they fell into the arms of the waves. The water was warm compared to the icy depths of the Helcaraxë; no one would fall ill and die from being doused in these waters.

The light that caught on Irissë's loose hair (Turukáno suspected he'd have cause to laugh once they went back to the city) was of Vása, not Laurelin, but out here it was so bright and so warm that he could believe it to be Laurelin, if he let himself believe. It was a distant echo of the light of the Trees, and at times seemed to serve only to mock him, but he would take that over darkness everlasting.

"I was beginning to think Vása would never show itself again, after all those storms."

"It's always this way on the coast. You did not travel to Alqualondë as often as I did; it rained at least once every time I was there."

"But storm clouds could never blot out the light of the Trees."

"…Fair enough."

They wandered away from the more populated areas of the beach, away from stretches of pure white sand and to where tufts of grass and stone intermingled with the sand. The last storm had brought up great clumps of seaweed to litter the shore, which the Amanyar had always called 'Uinen's cut hair', but after a while, it would dry and brown and crumble. One of the Ainur would never meet with such a fate. _But is that not what_ we _are doomed to face?_

From far away, a child screamed with laughter. Turukáno wheeled around, breath caught in his throat. For a moment, he forgot where he was, and breathed again only when he felt a warm breeze hit his face.

When he turned back, Irissë was looking at him through her great mass of hair, mouth set in a frown, squinting against the sunlight.

Turukáno shook his head sharply. "'Tis nothing."

Her silence betrayed a lack of belief concerning that, but Irissë did not pry. No belief, but understanding, he supposed.

At length, the two of them came to a halt at the point where sand finally gave way altogether to sea-smoothed stone and tussocks of wiry grass. In the distance there came resounding the echoing boom of the waves hitting the cliffs. Any sounds made by Quendi dropped out of hearing entirely.

He found that he was happiest in her company, away from everyone else or with only Itarillë to stand beside them. Oh, Turukáno did not mind the company of the people of Vinyamar, Noldor and Sindar, nobles and craftsmen and farmers and bards. New life grew in Beleriand and that pleased him. But at times, he found himself staring west, towards what did not fade and would not crumble, and he could not do that as a King, nor as an overseer, or as a son. He could not even do it as a father, not really. With every other role, what was demanded of him was not remembrance.

Like this… Turukáno didn't know what he was, like this. He had the freedom to stare towards the sea, to try vainly to catch a glimpse of the Undying West, but found that, increasingly, his longing to was lesser.

"You're still going to the Mereth Aderthad?"

"Yes, I am. I would be missed; questions would be asked."

Truth be told, Turukáno had little wish to travel to Lóminórë (or Dor-lómin, as the Mithrim called it). It would be the first time he had seen Findekáno or Findaráto in years, but he knew his father would have questions about why he'd never visited, questions Turukáno had no desire to answer or even be confronted with.

"And you still wish for me and Itarillë to come with you?"

"Yes. You know Itarillë's been talking about it for months now; it would break her heart if I made her stay here."

Irissë raised an eyebrow. "And you don't trust me to look after things here, I suppose?"

Turukáno felt his face grow warm. "That's not it, Irissë. Trust me, it's not; I didn't mean—"

She waved her hand to silence him. "I know, Turukáno, I know. I spoke only in jest." She drew a deep breath, nostrils flaring. "Actually, I'm looking forward to the chance to do a bit of traveling. It's been so long…"

He stole a glance at her. The wind blew Irissë's hair back over her face. There was no way to know what expression had crept over her face, but Turukáno could guess. The restlessness of Finwë's descendants was palpable, and Irissë's most of all.

"Irissë…"

"I've heard stories from the Mithrim of what lies beyond the Ered Lindon," she said abruptly. "You know that some of them had only made it to Hithlum a few years before we did. The land is vast, mostly empty; those who did not make it to Beleriand mostly settled east of the Hithaeglir, not west. They call it Eriador, filled with forests and empty plains. It would be worth seeing."

"When this is over…" He did not understand her need to travel, to wander. He never had. But he did understand what she felt to be cut off from what she loved. "…We can travel there. The Noldor will need more space eventually, and there are likely orcs that need routing, if nothing else."

She turned her head and smiled then, eyes crinkling upwards, pale face flushed with color. It was one of the few smiles Turukáno had seen Irissë give since the rising of Vása over the eastern horizon, for she had been many things in Beleriand, inquisitive, protective, grim, reckless, melancholy, restless, but rarely ever cheerful. Maybe it was the reflection of the sunlight flashing blindingly on the water, but in that moment she seemed to glow, as though they were beneath the light of the Trees again.

They wound their hands together. The wind wound their hair together as she tilted her head up and his down. He turned his gaze away from the west and brushed his lips against hers. There was a moment when he opened his eyes and something in him hurt to see dark hair and not golden, but he shook the pain away, and did not gaze towards the west.

She smiled, and in that moment, he would have promised her the world if it would have been enough to make her smile again.

\- 0-0-0-

In Gondolin, the ground was not deceptive; it spoke only truth. Such it was when the city was new, and if fate was kind, such it would remain as the years went down over the Vale of Tumladen, as the years went down over Beleriand.

(There echoed in the back of the mind a warning from a Vala— _'Thus it may come to pass that the curse of the Noldor shall find thee too ere the end'_ —but for now, that warning sat in the back of the mind, gathering dust. Let the Gondolindrim have their joy, for one night.)

Night lit by Rána waxed to roundness found them standing by the window of Turgon's bedchamber, Turgon and Aredhel both having withdrawn from the celebrations marking the completion of their new city. Both enjoyed celebrations and neither had many complaints about crowds, but the hour had grown late, and they had both tired of company.

"You wished to know if I would stay."

Silver and gold flashed in moonlight as though ablaze, but their faces were drawn to pallor in the shadows, the echo of old suffering coming out where it should not have. Turgon's hand twitched every time someone let loose a shriek of laughter. He nodded, swallowing hard. "Yes, I did." He could not imagine ruling in Gondolin without her there, with him. There were others whose absence he would have to accept—not hers, not ever.

Her pale eyes gleamed like ice. "Turukáno… I think…" She frowned, measuring her words. "…I think that there will come a day when I wish to leave. But…" She reached forwards and found his hand in the darkness. Turgon curled his fingers over the back of her hand. "…For now, yes." She smiled, and if it was not an exuberant smile, there was a softness in her face that was a greater tell of warmth than any smile.

The only promises they made were the ones made in the dark, the ones that did not see daylight.

**Author's Note:**

> Irissë—Aredhel  
> Turukáno—Turgon  
> Itarillë—Idril  
> Findaráto—Finrod  
> Nolofinwë—Fingolfin  
> Findekáno—Fingon
> 
> Quendi—literally 'the Speakers'; Elves (singular: Quendë) (Quenya)  
> Vása—a name given to the Sun by the Noldor, signifying 'The Consumer' (Exilic Quenya); of the Sun and the Moon, it is the younger of the two vessels, lit by Laurelin's last fruit  
> Amanyar—'Those of Aman' (Quenya) (singular: Amanya—probably) (adjectival form: Amanyarin); those Elves who made the journey to Aman, or were born there  
> Lóminórë— the Quenya name of Dor-lómin (S. 'Land of Echoes')  
> Ered Lindon—another name for the Ered Luin (S. Blue Mountains) that makes up the border between Beleriand and Eriador. The name 'Lindon' (Q. prob. 'Land of Music') comes from the name certain of the Noldor gave Ossiriand, for the singing of the Green-Elves could be heard all over the land  
> Hithaeglir—the Misty Mountains (Sindarin); the mountain range separating Eriador and Rhovanion, the largest mountain range in Middle-Earth; first raised by Morgoth to hinder Oromë in his hunting of Morgoth's creatures  
> Rána—a name given to the Moon by the Noldorin Exiles, signifying 'The Wanderer' (Exilic Quenya); of the Sun and the Moon, it is the elder of the two vessels, lit by Telperion's last flower; in an early version of 'Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor' was said to be "the giver of visions" (The Lost Road 264).


End file.
